


to be thy Adam

by papyrocrat



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/M, Gen, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-07
Updated: 2010-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alpha, pre-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to be thy Adam

 

This is hell, and he’s got to get used to it.He knows he deserves it, he just hadn’t actually believed it existed.Hell is exceptionally well-ventilated, go figure, and everyone wears business casual.Maybe he’s earned himself some plum hell-based office space.He could be a district manager, at least fifth circle.Maybe seventh, if he applies himself.

“Mr. Kroft is interested in your offer, but we’d like further assurances.”

Karl tilts his head to the left and takes in the room.Hell is strange, so he should make some sense of it.It’s tasteful, minimalist, but the poorly-hidden video cameras spoil the air of expensive discretion.His lawyer sits still, left hand subtly brushing his briefcase handle, as if he may suddenly need to make a casual but efficient exit.Karl allows himself a moment of enjoyment at the idea that the lawyer thinks he’s hiding his fear, but all the same, it’s nice that he’s doing his best in this last negotiation.Professional.He likes it when people are professional.It makes them predictable.Makes them easy. _She_ was professional.They all were.Karl rolls his eyes up toward the dark-haired lady who thinks she’s in charge.

She talks right past him to Park.“Of course you would, Mr. Park.Our Actives live in a state-of-the-art facility…”Her voice drones on, with infrequent but official-sounding interruptions from the DOC liaison about terms and security and non-notarized agreements.

He shifts a little and looks at Park.Just to remind him whose fault it is if this goes to shit.Then he smiles slowly, just a little, the sharp and frigid tip of bloody promises below the surface.

Park keeps his eyes trained on the lady’s serene, capable face as she offers a tour of the living areas.“That won’t be necessary, Ms. DeWitt,” Park demurs.He doesn’t ask for a moment alone with his client, but then, they never do.Karl knows all about lawyer-client privilege, and he thinks it’s very unprofessional.And a damned shame.These meetings are just so _boring_ with nothing fun to look forward to after.

Karl signs the papers anyway.

*

He tries to be his best.

Alpha’s best is always very, very good.When they swim in the pool, he stays in the longest and then dries off the fastest.He colors in the lines, and his trees are always trim and defined.

He gets lots of treatments.Which is good, because he enjoys his treatments.

*

It’s good to have his own lab, Topher thinks, and he’s earned it, because he’s the _best_.The trampoline is finally here, and his fridge is stocked with chilled, delicious YooHoos and beer, and nobody will laugh if he hums as he flips through the brain scans.He doesn’t care what anyone says, Fiona Apple will always be a hottie.He finally lands on an interesting one and stares for a few minutes.“You’re _psychotic,_ ” he informs the brain scan, “I wonder who you are?”

He drops the file – not because he’s afraid of a brain scan, that would be ridiculous – and is crouching ass-up searching through the scans and midway through a one-sided standoff with his abnormal psych professor (“’ _Psychotic_ is not a medically accurate diagnosis, Mr. Brink, and even if it were it would be frighteningly non-specific,’ yeah, frightening is right, Obi-Wan Kemeanie.I’ll give you frighteningly non-specific, if you have a look at this brain-“) when of course she clears her throat behind him.

“Have a look at which brain, Dr. Brink?”

“Aaaah!No!I mean!Hi!You startled me! Because, um, nobody calls me Dr. Brink, Dr. Brink is my father, well, if my father were a doctor, he’s an accountant, so I guess he’s really more of a Mr. Brink.Definitely don’t call me that.Can’t we-“ he shoves his empty left hand into a worn pocket and gives a charming boyish smile his best try “-go with Topher?”

He doesn’t know why he wasted perfectly good (and deeply limited, a voice inside his own decidedly non-psychotic brain tells him) boyish charm on her, because she doesn’t even blink.“And you must learn to call me Adelle.As well as to inform me when you fear that someone in my House may be, as you put it, psychotic.May I ask for some potentially useful details?”

He picks up the scan on top of the pile and holds it up to the light.He’s dancing through his explanation of the many anomalies of this particular brain “- and the amygdalae, they look like a sea monkey, not a sea monkey’s amygdalae but an actual sea monkey, I can’t even believe you can wipe this baby, “ when he realizes something unexpected. “Whoa, you’re actually understanding this, aren’t you? _Hot_.I mean….” She arches a patrician eyebrow, but lets it slide.And then she gets _even hotter_.She makes him an offer he can’t possibly refuse.

“Well, I certainly can’t have a psychopath running amok in my House, Topher, and we here at Rossum see no reason why work cannot contain an enjoyable challenge now and then.Why don’t you see what you can do about this particular brain?”She can tell he can’t believe his luck.“You’d be doing us all quite the service, and you’d have the satisfaction of knowing there was one less dangerous person out there once we set him free.I do insist that you take the appropriate precautions, and ensure you don’t leave him worse off.I prefer not to place such an interesting toy in the Attic.”

Appropriate precautions.Ha.No way he’s going to Joey this up.He’s a genius.“Sure, yeah, of course.Why don’t you send my man Alpha in here?He won’t mind.I hear he’s a big fan of his treatments.”

*

He walks out of the treatment room and leans on the rail.

“I enjoy my treatments,” Whiskey tells him.He’s not quite sure why he should care about this tidbit, but she goes on.“Did you have a nice treatment?”

“Yes, thank you.It was nice.”He blinks and shakes his head.There’d been a woman.She’d been scared, and weaker than him, and thrilled by it.He’d thrilled, too.It had been nice.

Whiskey doesn’t know anything about it.She’s looking up at him patiently.She’s weaker than him and very beautiful.This could be nice, too.

He smiles down at her.“I hope there’s applesauce for lunch.” 

She’s agreeable.“I like applesauce.”

He wants to offer her something, see if she takes it.“You could be my friend at lunch,” and then adds, “if you like.”

“Friends are nice,” she answers with utter sincerity, eyes and heart wide open.

He takes her hand and pulls her a hair closer, and she doesn’t resist.Friends are very nice.

*

“There are several irregularities, ma’am.They’re always together in the House, they’re on all these engagements together, and then they come back and climb into the same pod.I know they all think they’re friends or whatever, and I wouldn’t care, but they don’t act like the other Dolls.It’s strange.”

“Mr. Dominic, I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, there is nothing strange about either Whiskey or Alpha except the extraordinary amount of revenue they both bring in for Rossum.For all his non-traditional demeanor, Topher is quite capable and thorough with neuroplastic protocol.”

Dominic restrains himself from rolling his eyes at the mention of Topher.He’s a pro, and he knows DeWitt expects him to act like one, but that twitchy kid gets on his last nerve.He’ll screw them all someday, Dominic just knows it.Maybe he’ll snap the little schmuck’s neck next time DeWitt visits headquarters.Man’s gotta relax somehow.

“Ma’am, I have no interest in Topher’s job, believe me.But even leaving aside the….bond between Whiskey and Alpha, there’s also the matter of Alpha’s behavior when he’s wiped.”It shouldn’t be this hard.If it weren’t totally unthinkable, he’d have to assume she was doing the Ken doll.“He signs his artwork.He’s territorial about his pod.He complains when the assistants send him to Saunders.It doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens enough.Surely you’ve considered alternative containment strategies?”

“You can be certain that I have no qualms about sending someone to the Attic, Mr. Dominic, but I prefer to be absolutely out of options before giving up on someone in my House.”She’s clear-eyed and tough.He likes that about her.Among other things.“Moreover, our current containment strategy should be more than adequate.That is, after all, why I hired you.”She smiles with the corners of her mouth in acknowledgement of the enormous burden she’s leaving in their lives.“Fortunately, he will be out of our hair for the evening.Would you see that he’s prepped for his next engagement?”

He knows when he’s beat, and so he nods.“Ma’am.”

*

He don’t know how it happened.One minute he’s riding high, one hand around his knife and the other between Crystal’s thighs, and the next minute he’s slammed up against a wall and incomprehensibly agreeing to do _something else_ instead, as if a man could possibly want to do anything else, ever.His body sags even as his blood sings with lust and rage.Lars is gibbering, and Crystal is flirting and chatting, and the puny man with the gun is shoving him into some van.

“My car, man!I stole that car fair and – fair and –“ this is humiliating and he’ll kill them all; he can’t wait to make them bleed and come and cry.

“Square?” offers the man, who barely even bites back his laugh.

“ _You’re_ square!”Not his best, by “square” he’d meant “going to die in a puddle of your own shit, you fucking cop,” but he somehow he knew the prick probably wouldn’t be worth killing.No matter how much fun it’d be.

Crystal, unbelievably, is practically sitting on the bitch cop’s lap, swaying to the music she’s still hearing.“My man knows how to make a girl happy.Well, until he kills her,” she boasts.“But I like you.Maybe we’ll make an exception.At least, for a little while.”Crystal smirks at him and the puny man as she raises up on her knees, rests her sharp chin in the curve of the bitch’s shoulder, and murmurs spicy nothings for a solid few miles.

The tough cunt doesn’t take the bait, isn’t even intrigued, and he feels a little respect for her as she sighs with routine amusement.Also, she keeps her hand on her gun.He gets that.He has less respect – as in none at all - for the puny man, whose face has gone as slack as Lars’, but when he moves to press his advantage his head fills with steam and his limbs become lead.

He’s told Crystal a hundred times not to put shit in his Jack without telling him first, but does she listen?No.He blames her for this whole situation.He thinks about ways to shut her up, each one more promising than the last, but the tough one still has her gun, so he whiles away the rest of the drive by turning towards the back and staring daggers at Lars.It’s his fault too.His and Crystal’s.Lars can have her.

She just don’t know how to behave.He’s got to get himself a new girl.

*

“You don’t look sad anymore,” he says to Echo.Echo is beautiful.She’s the most beautiful of them all, and he’s going to be her prince.

“Why would I be sad?I was with Dr. Saunders.Dr.Saunders is nice.”Some day the doctor will prod a spot that wakes up the screaming inside, and Saunders will smile blandly at her slow blinks.Then she won’t think Dr. Saunders is so nice.

“You’re nice,” he says as he touches her face lightly.He still can’t decide between strawberries and peaches on his pancakes, but he can think of so many things he could do to her skin, and he would decide to do them all one by one, and it would be sweeter than all the fruit in the kitchen.

He turns to walk towards the stairs, and she comes with him.Alpha tears his eyes away from Echo’s beautiful cheek to look down at the curls cascading toward her breasts, and he glimpses Whiskey walking towards them.He swerves to his left, forcing Echo to stumble towards the ledge.He catches her smoothly, curving her warm waist against his hip, and she looks up in ignorant gratitude.“Friends help each other out,” he tells Echo, with his eyes trained on Whiskey.

Whiskey’s face breaks into surprise, and then hurt, and then vacant puzzlement.“Friends are nice,” she informs them, and Echo smiles her agreement.

Warmth and smiles and pain.So many things are so very nice.

* 

Echo looks sad, and Alpha goes almost blind with rage.Whiskey does it on purpose, he knows it, it’s to get back at him, she’s just feigning that useless stupidity.Her pretty face glows at being chosen, while Echo sits there like she’s only as good as the rest of them, and Whiskey doesn’t even deserve to be pretty.So he picks up a knife and fixes it.The blood blooms on her face, and relief he never knew he could feel shoots through his nerves.She screams and cries, and every squeal is a cool cloth on his fevered brain.

Echo doesn’t look sad any more, only slightly baffled.She’s not like Whiskey, her idiocy is all real.He loves that about her.

There’s bedlam and it’s delicious, and it waltzes with time on his tongue.He spends an eternity searching for Echo’s grateful smile, and he’s still being swept away before he can catch his breath.Somebody shouts something about the Attic and someone else is oafishly offering him a treatment.Horror and craven gratitude duke it out behind his eyes and he’s caught in the crossfire and there’s never going to be anything better than hitting back.One of them throws him into the chair, and he fights and fights, but still he drowns in warm, dry light.

It’s like nothing else in the world.The million surging sparks become a supernova, and then a black hole of precision and rage.The chaos whirls around him, and he delights in the agony and revels in the power it will so clearly become.

He understands hell now, and he’s getting out.


End file.
